


simple, like mud

by eliotkeats



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caretaking, Friendship, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-30 10:07:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8528938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eliotkeats/pseuds/eliotkeats
Summary: "Percy, there’s blood on your face."





	

“Percy, there’s blood on your face,” Pike says.  

Percy blinks up at her, owlish, from where he’s sitting, back propped against the dark clay and straggly grass of the riverbank incline, one leg folded under him and the other stretched out.  

“Oh?”  

Pike catches his fingers before he can touch the cut on his temple, blood trickling in uneven rivulets down his cheek. “Don’t, you’ll get it dirty!”

A tired smile flickers across his face. “I’m  _ covered  _ in mud, Pike.” Mud dries chalky gray on his trousers, caked to mid-thigh, cracking over his knees when he stirs. His glasses, cupped in one palm, are spattered with mud, the lenses smeared where he’d tried to clean them on his shirt hem. 

“The top half of you isn’t. Let me—aha!” She triumphantly produces a mostly dry handkerchief from her belt pouch, and shakes out the crumpled ball of fabric. Leaning forward, she braces one hand on Percy’s shoulder — he gives beneath her touch, leaning back a fraction against the riverbank. She sticks a corner of the handkerchief in her mouth without thinking, and blushes. It was silly, but the river water’s probably more unhygienic than saliva, and it’s all muddy from the fight anyway.

Percy doesn’t protest; just leans back against the sharp-edged river grasses and lets Pike dab at the cut. Blood diluted with river water comes away pale pink on her white handkerchief. The edges of the cut are clean, thank Sarenrae, and if it bleeds, at least it’ll bleed clean.

The crisp fall breeze, smelling of damp earth and river mud and the faint tang of woodsmoke, cuts through her sodden clothing, catching under the edge of her blouse and causing goose pimples across her stomach and arms.  

Percy's eyes are open, pale eyelashes and downturned gaze. He’s at chest height with her — (if he kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, he’d be eye level with her nipples) — but he’s keeping his gaze fixed on the narrow strip of ground between them.

She glances down and frowns. "Close your eyes, Percy," she says. "You've got a cut on your eyelid."

She spits on the handkerchief — Percy winces — and carefully wipes it across the reddened, raised scratch. Then she picks a clump of dried mud out of Percy’s hair, Percy tipping his head to one side without prompting. The river water has left his hair stiff and speckled with dirt, and Pike self-consciously combs her fingers through to smooth it as best as she can.

There’s a loud shriek from behind Pike, and she twists in alarm, to see a soaking wet Scanlan sloshing angrily into the shallows, wringing out his hat, and Vax leaning on Vex’s shoulder, laughing his head off.  Vex calls something out to Scanlan, but the wind whips it away before Pike can catch it.  Further down the river, Grog’s hacking away with grim enthusiasm at a disfigured, swamp green carcass.  

"Hey, Pikey!" Vax shouts, as he makes his way to the river’s edge, his soaked cloak slapping around his legs, limping and trying to look like he’s not. "Is Percival hurt?"   
  
"Yea, you alright, Percy?" Vex calls concernedly, wringing out her braid.

Percy lifts his head and squints at the twins. “I’m perfectly alright! Thank you, Pike,” he adds in a lower tone, and draws one knee up, like he’s about to stand.

“Hold it!” Pike barks.

Percy freezes.  

She quickly leans forward, Percy’s knee digging into her soft stomach, and pulls a strand of drying, fibrous algae from behind his ear, like a really strange and unwanted magic trick, and flicks it into the coarse grass. “There. Better?”

Percy looks down at himself ruefully. “I’m  _ really  _ looking forward to the hot bath that merchant promised us.”

Pike pats him on the shoulder sympathetically.  “I know, me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> "she said / honey, y'gotta learn that love is simple just like mud" - 'funny you should ask', the front bottoms
> 
> hi my name's elliot and i can't write titles


End file.
